The invention relates to a segment and dot display device, particulary applicable to a simplified writing of the Arabian language, and to a visualization device comprising such a display device.
Devices for making visible stylized alphanumerical symbols by displaying straight line segments are known. The means for controlling these display devices comprise a limited number of all-or-nothing controls which allow all the symbols of a line of writing to be displayed simultaneously. These devices comprise light-emitting diodes or liquid crystals which are controlled electrically by two-state signals. These diodes or liquid crystals are arranged in matrices repeating a number of times a basic pattern comprising all the segments likely to be used to form these alphanumerical symbols. To display the characters, the simplest conventional display devices comprise matrices, formed by the repetition of a basic pattern having seven segments for digital display and fourteen segments for alphanumerical display, these repeated basic patterns being separated. Because the basic pattern is formed from straight line segments, the curvilinear appearance of conventional writing is not reproduced, but the graphism is comprehensible.
The conventional writing of the Arabian language is presented in the same way as conventional writing with Roman characters: the sentences are made up from words separated from each other, each word being a succession of letters of very different shapes joined together. These letters are composed of curves, straight line segments and isolated dots below or above the letters. These letters are sometimes only differentiated from each other by the presence or absence of these dots.